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"oY.'X . ........,..,... ......""-""",,. ... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ;::::::::::::: lli :: >>w . ...................................................... ....................,.............t'........................... The PASSENGER . i i :, .,: Jl: ' .., : ':::::,:::::::: : +: ::::;:;:::;:::::::::::::;:::::::.::::::::: : :<,- J.;..7'.,;,. -.-.. J-:w r7/:':: : ; : :::: :;;;.4 "., PATRICK A. 1 duthor or TilE GENERAL PUTNAM A member of Penguin Putnam Inc. if! sakes, until local yakuza suggested that the artist cease meddling with a popular brand name. The artist's latter-day homages to the spirit of Warhol extend to his meticulous paintings of pop images in the manga and anime styles-so utterly flat that one assumes they're silk screens. His signature figure, ML DOB, has even become a regis- tered image with its own fan club, like Pokémon or Hello Kitty. But it's Mura- kami's sculptures that have gained the most attention recently: "Hiropon" (slang for "heroin" in Japanese) is a female figure with a Baroque tousle of red hair whose preternaturally large breasts squirt jets of milk. Her companion (' 'My Lonesome Cow- boy") is an ithyphalÌic nude doing rope tricks with a spiralling lasso of semen. Through Sept. 12. (Open Wednesdays through Sundays, 1 to 5.) KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART, Route 22 at Jay St., Katonah, N.Y. (914-232-9555)-"WILD- flowers," an exhibition of contemporary flo- ral imagery, gathers paintings, sculptures, photographs, and videos by forty artists, in- cl uding Fred Tomaselli, Joan Nelson, Thomas Woodruff, Sally Apfelbaum, and Richard Rothman. Through Oct. 3. (Open daily, except Mondays, noon to 5.) PARRISH ART MUSEUM, 25 Job's Lane, South- ampton, N.Y. (516-283-2118)-"Keith Sonnier: Tri-Parrish." A site-specific work by the neon-and-light sculptoL Sonnier's installation is best viewed at cocktail hour and on into the dark, when his luminescent doodles highlight the three arches at the museum's entrance. Through Sept. 19. (Open Mondays through Saturdays, 11 to 5, and Sundays, 1 to 5.) GALLERIES-UPTOWN (Summer-hours warning: Many galleries are open Mondays through Fridays, from around 10 or 11 to between 5 and 6. Others follow the normal Tuesday-to-Saturday schedule. It's best to call aheadJ AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART-A two-venue exhi- bition of works from Australia's central desert region. The Aboriginal artists have exchanged traditional materials (sand, blood, feathers) for acrylic and canvas, but the urgency of their ' 'dreamings' '-which serve as ancestral records, tribal cosmogonies, maps of seasonal water sources, almanacs of food taboos, etc.-remains undiminished. Although the preferred mark is the dot, in a sort of hypnotic pointillist profusion, the form has been likened to Abstract Ex- pressionism. The comparison is apt: the messages in each genre are indecipherable yet palpably, radiantly present. Through Aug. 25. (United Nations public lobby. 963- 4475. Open daily, 9 to 5.... Australian Mission to the United Nations, 150 E. 42nd St. 351-6551. Open by appointment.) liTHE CARRIAGE ERA IN NEW YORK"-Eight sleek and beautifully designed vehicles from a century ago, including a conveyance for summer, an elegant wicker Three Spring Basket Beach Phaeton, displayed with ac- cessories: a serious picnic basket, for in- stance, with the lid to a ceramic butter dish held down by a leather strap and buckle, and horse clothing, in linen as well as the more traditional wool. See also examples of the or.iginal accelerator-a vitrineful of whips and crops for all seasons and needs. Through Sept. 10. (PaineWebber Building, Sixth Ave. at 52nd St. 713-2885.) IPATTERNs"-Curator Valerie McKenzie origi- nally intended this group show as a tribute to Pattern and Decoration, the late-seventies trendlet Happily, it became something more inclusive and contemporary. To be sure, there are plenty of peppy, colorful P. & D.- style works, such as Ann Agee's "Blue Maxi," a painting of a wallpaper sample with floral insets based on product packag- ing, and Julia Jacquette's grid of wrapped candies. But the strongest images tend to be either sombre or manic. The standout in the former category is Chris Gallagher's "Rill," a field of beautifully murky, wavering stripes. j .;":.;.. -( - :::.;..;- t: : t=! : ::.). :;.:-. . :: :: r .:-:;::. ...:.: ":. .:: ::.:.::; .:.;- .::.;-: .:.;:- .:::=:- .:.;:-. :.;:::: ;-:.;.:- .:-::.; ;.::::; .:.::: For sheer visual hyperactivity, meanwhile, nothing beats Nina Bovasso's small untitled paintings on paper, which suggest an ebul- liently psychotic version of Lotta Dot. Through Aug. 27. (Graham, 1014 Madison Ave., at 78th St. 535-5767.) GALLERI ES-CH ELSEA RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA-"Untitled, 1999 (tomorrow can shut up and go away)." Tiravanija con- tinues to rifle through postwar avant- garde history, offering in each new show another amusing, charming, annoying, and pointed tweak of the art world, all within the context of art as fun. In 1997, he cre- ated a super-cheap, half-scale version of Philip Johnson's Glass House within the precincts of MOMA's sculpture garden (another Johnson design). The modernesque shack was meant to function as a playroom for kids. In this show, Tiravanija has re- created his entire apartment within the gallery, with a working kitchen and bath- room, bed, posters, knickknacks, etc. Purists might complain that Lucas Samaras did much the same thing in the early six- ties. The difference: Samaras lived inside his bedroom at the gallery; Tiravanija sim- ply hired one of his students from Colum- bia to do the living for him. Smart. Through Aug. 31. (Gavin Brown's Enterprise, 436 W. 15th SL 627-5258.) GROUP SHow-Robert Gober, renowned for his creepy and melancholic sculptures of drains, sinks, and urinals, among other symbolically charged talismans of the home and of everyday life, has organized a group exhibition that speaks strongly to his own preoccupations. The sho,,- is very much an installation, with unusually dim lighting and the grating noise of a saw (it's the audio track from "Spiked Buck," Robert Beck's video of someone insistently sawing the antlers from a decapitated stag). Through Cady Noland's cheaply fabricated, abstract stocks (the instrument of corporal punishment, not the corporate share), one catches glimpses of Anni Albers's exquisite gray-and-white Bauhaus textile grid. On facing walls, Gober has installed Joan Semel's large-scale paintings of nude cou- ples; in certain paintings, the lovers dis- playa pronounced pallor, as if they had been laid out on mortuary slabs rather than on beds. In the back gallery, Nancy Shaver's series of black-and-white pho- tographs (1975-77) of found pieces of chil- dren's clothing has a hapless, forlorn aiL Like Christian Boltanski's treatment of similar childhood themes, the pictures savor of foren ic pathology. Gober's show is without a doubt the most ambitious group exhibition of the summer: Welcome to the House of Dispassionate Horrors. Through Sept. 10. (Marks, 522 W. 22nd St. 243-0200.) GALLERIES-DOWNTOWN JOHN ARM LEDER and SYLVIE FLEURy-These Swiss artists have assembled two sprawling exhi- bitions that share a provisional, mockup feel. Armleder's "Mondo Tiki," a big steel- and-wood scaffolding furnished with televi- sion sets playing B movies, is a classic instance of the generic nineties installation piece: shapeless and inert, it dares you to ignore it. Smaller works, including a room occu pied by six revolving disco balls, are only marginally more engaging. Fleury's half of the show has a clearer point of view; it includes exercise videos, a bisected Camaro painted a glittering mauve, and a gaggle of rocket ships covered in fake fUL But most of these quasi-feminist conceits feel one-note- ish, not to mention dated. "BE AMAZING," one Fleury piece admonishes, to which viewers might be tempted to respond, "You first." Both shows through Aug. 28. (Ace, 275 Hudson St. 255-5599.) "SIGNS OF THE TIMES "-A seductively motley col- lection of hand-painted road signs, adver- tisements, and yard art, some of it dating back to the nineteenth century. With their crudely lettered exhortations to "Drink How-